


And the green grass grew all around

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: A Bit Angsty Porn with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Glory Hole, Kinktober, Kinktober 2017, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Poor Watson, Turkish Bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:57:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: There was a feather in the hole and a hole in the wall and a wall at the bath...ACD. PWP. Holmes/Watson. Glory hole at the Turkish bath.For the Kinktober Day 22 prompt: glory hole.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [И зелёная трава растёт кругом...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13514640) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



I mumbled a greeting at Holmes’s return, but did not lower my newspaper.

“Well, one needn’t be a detective, my dear Watson, to deduce that you enjoyed yourself this afternoon.”

Damn it!

How much did Holmes see? How much did my person, half hidden by the news of the world, reveal to one to whom every person's every act was as clearly read _as_ that news of the world?

I fought the urge to drop my ink-and-page shield and look Holmes in the eye. Doing so would give him every opportunity to discover the remainder of what he may or may not have already observed. And if he could read the whole truth of my afternoon, he would be well within his rights, according to polite, or impolite, society, to mock me or scorn me or pity me or brand me with some other shameful but, naturally, or rather hopefully, unspoken charge. With Herculean effort, I ruffled the sheets in my hand in, or so I thought, a manner most my custom and feigned interest in a column of advertisements.

“Oh, yes?” I muttered, relieved and, yes, astounded, at nonchalance in my own voice.

“Yes,” snapped Holmes. Then he sighed and spoke more evenly and philosophically.

“In addition to fees paid, Watson, I have received a number of tokens of appreciation from clients over the years. I suppose a trio of guest passes to the most exclusive Turkish bath in London is not so unusual a reward, especially given I rescued one of the most revered names in England from the clutches of a ruthless blackmailer. Why it’s quite like a box at the opera, isn’t it? But unlike the opera, I have no taste for Turkish baths. However, it would be rude to refuse a gift, especially when I have a companion who would greatly appreciate the experience, thrice over. And you did, did you not, Watson?”

“I did.”

During Holmes’s address, I had summoned the courage to meet his gaze. I was a man of the world. So was he, for that matter. Down came the newspaper. And Holmes’s expression was wonderfully, mercifully, impassive. Thus, I fell, relieved, upon facts.

“The layout of the establishment was much the same as my preferred bath, the one on Northumberland Avenue. Or even the one on Jermyn Street that I visit on rare occasion. But, of course, at this one, everything was on a much finer scale. And the clientele? Well, I saw gentlemen whose names usually feature as prominently, or more prominently, if you’ll forgive me, Holmes, than yours in publications such as this one.”

I ruffled my newspaper for emphasis.

“I forgive you,” said Holmes with an amused smile. I folded my newspaper, and with a wave, he bid me continue.

“And it follows that, given the distinguished nature of the patrons, more privacy and more quiet were afforded in some chambers than might be found in similar establishments. But I am a creature of habit. I did what I do regardless of society. I partook of a massage, made use of dry sauna and bathing pool, and dozed comfortably, contentedly in various nooks.”

Holmes nodded. “Worth a second visit, then?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, smiling. “And a third.”

“Capital. Well, I have something brewing that requires my attention.” He nodded to the acid-charred bench of chemicals.

I rose as he did and mixed myself a whiskey and soda, then settled back in my armchair.

I had lied, of course, but only by omission.

Something unusual had occurred at the bath. And I had not yet decided what I thought about it.

But, oh, how odd, and oddly wonderful, the mingling sensations of ripe wickedness and lust and, yes, though many may doubt the claim, novelty.

To be bold and crude: that afternoon at the bath, I’d taken my first lover since Mary’s death. Or rather, he had taken me.

But for a certain item hidden in my overcoat pocket, I would not be convinced the whole matter was not the passion-starved dream of an aging widower.

As I told Holmes, I had partaken of a massage. Mine was the final alcove in a long row, each station separated by a thin wall. The stone and candlelight gave corridor the appearance of catacombs, but each station was decorated with rich-coloured curtains, heavy ones that served as doors and light ones that decorated the interior walls. In mine, incense burned, as did a small stove, which gave off its own pleasant aroma of cindering wood as well as warmth. The heated oils rubbed into my skin hinted at distant lands, a few I knew. Glass jars and vials decorated one table, clean linen another. The attendant was skilled in his trade. Soon I was moulded, or, perhaps, unmoulded, into a halcyon state.

When hands finally bid farewell to skin, the attendant indicated the prescribed amount of time—represented by an overturned hourglass full of sand—I was permitted remain _in situ_. The table was comfortable, the environs warm, and the comfort and warmth, blissful.

Thus, I slept.

When I woke, a bit more than half of the hourglass remained. I pushed myself clumsily to sitting, groaning and snorting like the beast that I was.

Then I saw it.

Something in the wall.

I slid off the table and drew the veil aside.

It was a feather.

To be more precise, it was the tip of a brown feather peeking out of a hole at waist-height in the wall.

The feather moved, back and forth.

With a hand on the table for balance, I lowered myself to peer into the hole, but, of course, given my age and state of alertness, this act was not a swift one and by the time I was eye-to-eye with the fist-sized hole, the feather was gone and a veil concealed the alcove beyond and the feather-bearer.

How odd!

A joke, of course.

I donned the robe on the hook and was about to investigate the neighboring alcove when the feather appeared again, moving as before.

Was it taunting me? Or was that a creation of my florid imagination, that which Holmes was always accusing me of permitting to run amok in my chronicles?

Bracing myself with a hand on the wall, I bent and caught the feather gently between thumb and forefinger.

It tugged. I tugged back.

I smiled.

It _was_ taunting me.

It tugged a bit harder. I did, too.

Then it pulled my hand into the hole.

And then my fingertip was in a mouth.

I gasped and wrenched my hand back as if burned.

A pause. Then the very tip of the feather appearing, moving back and forth slowly.

Was it apologizing?

I did have too much imagination, but I knew the question before clear enough: this game, did I dare play it?

I looked at the hourglass, then shrugged.

I caught the feather, let it pull my hand through the hole, and let my forefinger be drawn into the wet, and with a movement of my own, I confirmed, adult-sized mouth.

It was a mouth with a devilishly clever tongue. Lips closed around the digit. Teeth nipped. But what sent a shot of desire straight to my core was the tongue, swirling, teasing, curling and uncurling. I painted the lips with spit, they were thin and a bit chapped.

More sucking. Now very hard, very tight suction. Then suddenly, my finger was released and bathed in the cool air.

I withdrew my hand slowly.

In a moment, the feather was there, moving, back and forth, quickly, teasingly, as in the beginning.

I recognised the invitation and declined. Neither my lust nor my curiosity could overcome the lurking horror of castration.

I would _not_ stick my prick in that hole.

That alternative was soon unavailable, however, as the feather was replaced by a cock.

Long. With a slight bend to the left.

And erect. Very erect.

To my later, and still lingering, surprise, I didn’t hesitate. I flew to the table with unguents, oils, and salves and selected the one I deemed most suited for the purpose. Then I grabbed a towel as I turned, rushed back to the prick, which was beginning to show the first signs of wilting—signs that shouldn’t have, needn’t have, but did distress me—and went to work.

My neighbour found his release quite quickly and without any sound that my ear, pressed to the wall, detected.

After I cleaned it, his cock disappeared, and the feather took its place. It moved slowly and, yes, invitingly. The threat was still there, but it was lessened by what my lust-addled mind considered a show of good will.

I opened my robe. The height of the hole would be just right for—

And before I had finished the thought, I had given myself a pair of priming strokes, and my half-hard prick was following the feather in its retreat.

I knew it would be a mouth and not a hand. But I still sighed at the wet caress.

That tongue.

I turned my head to the side and let the wall scrape my cheek, pushing as much of myself as would fit through the hole.

He was licking the shaft, beautifully. A steadying hand was wrapped around the base. Perfect suckling of the head, as if he had all day, all night. I half-smiled as the tip of the tongue traced the veins and the girth. Mine was not a long prick, but it was a thick one.

It spread a pair of lips gloriously.

I imagined those phantom lips stretching, glistening, smiling around it. I had known naught but the occasional self-pleasure for a couple of years, and it was exquisite to be, once more, in the care of another.

I shivered. To be _at the mercy_ of another.

Teasing my slit, teasing my prickhead, a lovely squeezing around the base, and I was coming to crisis against—and through—the wall.

He swallowed.

And it shouldn’t have mattered, but the image, the knowledge, sparked an encore burst of pleasure and seed. It was a smaller, weaker but, somehow, sweeter, and I heard, or perhaps felt, or perhaps imagined, my neighbour sigh and smile at the dribble.

He cleaned me as efficiently as I had cleaned him.

I looked over my shoulder.

I decided to wait until the last of the grains fell, until the attendant bid me leave, before I exited.

But as I rushed about, tying the sash of the robe, finding my slippers, depositing the towel in the linen bin and unnecessarily straightening the jars, I almost forgot about the veil.

I drew it back.

And there it was.

The feather. In the hole. Motionless.

I slipped it into my pocket just as footfall could be heard in the corridor.


	2. Chapter 2

I had hoped to return to the bath the following week. My plan was to be there on the same day of the week at the same time, and, if fate allowed, in the same place.

But fate is a fickle sort and, if a mistress, then certainly not one of mine.

Holmes and I were soon embroiled in a case that took us out of London, and two weeks had passed before I found myself at the desired spot, lying upon the comfortable table, inhaling the wisps of stove and incense, ensconced in the last of the massage alcoves.

The attendant seemed displeased, for it was obvious his ministrations were not bringing about the same state of blessed euphoria as at the initial visit. How could they, when I was a pendulum swinging between lusty anticipation and self-flagellation most fierce?

I had absolutely no indication that there would be repeat encounter. In fact, the anonymity and the casual nature of the exchange strongly suggested it would be a one-time incident. Nevertheless, I could not resist confronting this cold, limp, flaccid truth directly.

Watson!

When I disparaged myself, it was often in Holmes’s voice, that cry which was part insulting sneer and part impatient beckon, the call which I usually heeded like the faithful beast-companion that I was.

With murmurs of both apology, his, and reassurance, mine, and not a few coins pressed to palm, from mine to his, naturally, the attendant left me to my waiting and silent scourging, that is, abandoned me to my foolish hope

I shackled my gaze to the grains of sand cascading in the hourglass, and then—

_there it was!_

I bit my lip when the veil wiggled and, in an instant, was off the table and pulling back the gossamer drape.

The brown feather!

Or rather its wing-partner. Or perhaps tail-partner. I knew nothing of birds.

The feather wiggled as if to say, ‘Were you fretting already, ol’ buzzard?’

I shook my head at it. And smiled. And then I hurriedly fetched what I had stashed in the pocket of my robe.

I did not speak the language of feathers—indeed, I had spent far too much time studying the plume, pondering the meaning of it and being frustrated by my cluelessness—but I was fluent in another tongue: that of flowers.

The white blossom I pushed into the hole had been obtained from a friend, a former patient, in fact, who managed several hothouses.

Spanish jasmine signified sensuality.

The flower disappeared. As did the feather.

I could not—no, I shall be frank, here if nowhere else—I _chose_ not to wait a moment longer. Without preamble or invitation, avian, floral, or otherwise, I shoved my hard prick into the hole.

And straight into that mouth.

I failed to silence a moan.

He may have heard it. I hoped he heard it. I hoped he liked it because…

_…that mouth!_

It was the same mouth. It had to be. No amount of taking myself in hand—which I had done quite often in the past two weeks—compared.

The skillful tongue, the curled lips. It all felt exactly as before.

I brushed against his palate. Oh, he was taking a bit more of me. With comical zest befitting a green-horned youth, I thrust against the wall; scratching and scraping my torso and face as I did so.

Suddenly, his hand wrapped very tightly ‘round the base of my shaft.

The firm touch was panacea.

At once, my body stilled—well, all save my groin, which still throbbed—and my mind calmed.

I let him guide my movements. They were slow, shallow thrusts which he rewarded with exquisite suckling and licks.

Quite soon, we found a rhythm.

‘I’m here. I’m here. I’m here,’ he seemed to say.

‘Take me. Take me. Do what you will, but don’t let me go,’ I replied.

He held me in his mouth a moment too long after I’d spent myself.

And it was glorious.

When the lust-fog lifted, I dropped to my knees.

And I’d like to report that I serviced him with the skill of a prized courtesan.

I’d like to, of course, but, in short, and in truth, I made a right muck of it.

Too sloppy, too floppy, too wet, too set, too erratic, too graceless. No finesse. No flair. And, most lamentably, absolutely no sense of the limits of my own gag reflex.

I choked. Often. I sputtered. Much. And there were teeth where there ought not to have been teeth. Only once, thank goodness. And I realised much, much, _much_ too late—especially given all the variations of the encounter that had crossed my filthy mind in the past fortnight—two things: one, that the wisdom of three continents was as dusty and cobwebby as a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co, and, two, that performing fellatio was nothing at all like riding a bicycle.

But just when I was about to pull off and finish him with a clumsy and apologetic hand, something tickled my chin.

I stopped whatever horror I was visiting upon him and tilted my head ever so slightly that I might bring the object into the far crease of my vision.

It tickled me once more.

The feather.

Imitating his earlier gesture, I encircled the base of his shaft with one hand and found the feather with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand.

He tugged. I tugged.

He tugged. I tugged.

_Like this. Like this. I like it. Like. This._

And I got it.

And even when his body tensed, I kept at the steady, almost train-like, cadence in my bobbing and sucking.

_Like that. Like that. He likes it. Like. That._

As before, my ghost lover came in silence.

His seed was bitter. I grunted and grimaced and spit it in the towel as soon as I was able, but, if it mattered, and I suspected that it did not, I cleaned him with as much tenderness, as much gentleness, with as much care as the gesture permitted.

Then I set about getting myself to my feet.

I am old. And stiff. And some days it is easy to forget the Jezail bullet only shattered one shoulder, and not every joint in my body.

And thus, far more grains fell in the hourglass than I would care to admit, but by the time I was standing, the feather was in the hole.

I smiled as I plucked it from its resting place, then tucked it into the pocket of my robe.

* * *

“I know nothing of birds.”

“I quite like them, roasted with Mrs. Hudson’s buttered parsnips and a glass of something a little choice in white wines.”

I started.

“Holmes!”

“Apologies, my dear Watson.” He strode towards me, stopping to look over my shoulder and study the bookcase. “It is a gap in the library, isn’t it? And not just in the cookery section. Has any particular bird caught your fancy of late?”

What was I to say? A brown one? With feathers?

“I saw one the other day. And thought it unusual for the city,” I lied. “I suppose there are experts. Ornithologists. Taxidermists. Red-faced aunts in tweeds who never roam without a pair of binoculars strung ‘round their necks?” I frowned.

“I am none of those, but if you describe the bird, perhaps I can be of assistance.”

I would sooner consume the feathers than describe them or show them to Holmes.

There would be questions that I didn’t want to answer, and there might even be answers I didn’t want to hear.

“Oh, this is preposterous!” I exclaimed and threw my hands up in air in a manner, I confess, most befit a stage actor in a similar, but, of course, hardly the same, predicament. I turned and pushed past Holmes and headed for the stairs to my bedroom.

“Watson?”

I waved off his concern and gruffly wished him a good night.

* * *

It was just pleasure. A bit of spontaneous, and then a bit of slightly less spontaneous, pleasure. Perhaps my ghost lover did this all the time. He enjoyed it. Well, good for him and his wall-mates. He was obviously quite good at it. Maybe, for a handsome sum, the bath allowed him the use of that alcove. And for a handsomer one, they didn’t ask questions about what he did there.

Maybe he was a blackmailer! And would demand a handsome sum of me, too!

I doubted it. But I was entirely the wrong type of victim if he was. And I had no handsome sums to give. And I did not fear ruin.

War. Widowhood. Mister Sherlock Holmes. All curious phenomena that made one both the ash and the phoenix, that made one strangely inured to ‘the worst that may befall a man.’

I did, however, fear the swell of emotion in my chest, where there ought to be nothing more than simple contentment at the memory of sated lust and satisfying carnality.

Watson! You’re a bloody fool! Go to sleep!

I gave the two feathers, twins, I had noted, one more glance, then tucked them between the pages of a note-book and did as the master’s voice bid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as I'm concerned there's only one glory hole fic in the larger Sherlock Holmes fandom and that's [I Am Not Actually A Pervert](https://archiveofourown.org/works/404258) by dorothydonne. At one point, I am certain I knew parts of it by rote because it is also a Master Class in the kind of dirty talk I like. So there's no possible way that any treatment of mine of this kink could fail, consciously and unconsciously, to pay tribute to it. It's BBC Sherlock, but if you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So anachronistic use of the song because it wouldn't be written until 1912. "The Nightingale and the Rose" is one of the stories in _The Happy Prince and Other Tales_ by Oscar Wilde, 1888.

My final visit to the bath was delayed owing to a precipitous matter, that is, my precipitating, that is, falling like rain into the Thames as I was in pursuit of Holmes who was in pursuit of a fleet-footed villain. I surfaced with an ague of the temporarily invaliding variety.

But two weeks to the day and hour of the previous encounter, I returned.

How could I not?

The attendant frowned upon learning of my accident and resulting illness, and he prepared a bespoke treatment of oils and herbs, the former rubbed into my skin and the latter set to simmer on the stove and thicken the air; both were lovely.

I placed the care of my body in his skilled hands and sent my thoughts to the imaginary bordello where they’d often wandered in between bouts of shivering and feverish dreams over the course of the last two weeks.

After the massage, the attendant glowed like any craftsman well-pleased in his work. Accordingly, I showered praise upon him and pressed more coins to his palm. He blessed me, upturned the hourglass, and bid farewell.

I stared at the veil until it moved.

Yes, yes, yes.

I eased off the table, seized a towel and a cushion, and greeted the feather in the hole.

I tugged. He tugged. I tugged a bit harder.

_You first, this time._

He understood. His prick appeared.

I dropped the cushion, then dropped myself upon it.

I took my time, committing to memory his features: his scent, the softness of his prickhead and the hardness of the tissue beneath his skin, his flavour, the slight left bend of his shaft, the way he thrust, the absolute silence with which he came to crisis.

And I am pleased to report that my performance was improved over the last. I still spit his seed in the towel, however. I doubted that even with a lifetime membership to this establishment, or commitment to this act, I would ever develop a taste for it.

I got to my feet slowly. And perhaps it was the vestiges of the illness or the lingering torpor from massage or maybe even the sobering knowledge that this was the last of our nameless, faceless pleasures, but generous portions of unguent and stroking were required before I was ready.

There was the steadying hand, and…

_…that was not a mouth!_

“OH!” I exclaimed.

Sensation and thought were two runaway cabs, colliding at the street corner of my throat.

He wanted to be buggered.

He was buggering himself upon me.

Well. All right? Yes. Quite all right.

Tight. So very tight.

He slipped off.

I pressed myself to the wall and he impaled himself anew.

He had prepared himself for this, that much was clear.

I had not, that much was also clear.

I remembered the rhythm of the feather.

_Like this. Like this. He likes it. Like. This._

And for the first time, I desired a pair of shoulders or hips to grip instead of a wall.

Perhaps with a bit of angling I could…

I heard him moan. It was bitten, it was stifled, it was scarcely a noise, but I knew it was him.

And, suddenly, I was awash in the pride of the stud.

I thrust harder and to no rhythm but my own lust’s goading.

_You want to be buggered, good sir, then buggered you shall be._

I slammed myself against the wall and cared not when the stone beneath my face was decorated with red smears. A silent growl vibrated in my chest and grew to a roar.

I came so bloody hard.

I do not remember him cleaning me, though he must have. How long I stood leaning against the wall, lost in the emptiness of mind and the spent-ness of body, I do not know.

When I came to my senses, there was my flaccid prick where it ought to be and there was the feather in the hole, where, according to lover’s reason, it ought to be.

I took a deep breath and realised the stinging about my nose and cheeks was no fantasy. The dream-like quality of it all lifted like fog in the morning sun, and I hastily set the room to rights.

I raised the hood of the robe, retrieved my feather token, and left long before the sands in the hourglass bid me go.

* * *

“Watson!”

I should have retreated to my room, but I wanted the comfort of the fire and the nearness of the good whiskey.

I gave him a drunk’s glance, measuring and vague.

“Holmes,” I mumbled and lifted my glass to him.

“You’ve had a fall.”

I laughed a bitter laugh and nodded. “Yes.” Then I snorted and drained the glass and pushed upon the chair arms until I was, more or less, standing.

“I’m off to the club,” I muttered.

They had fires there, and no busybody detectives who saw bloody everything! And there a man could say ‘sod off’ with a glance and no one bothered him.

I tottered towards my overcoat and managed to place myself inside it with all the grace of the goat making its way through the anaconda.

All the while, Holmes was watching.

Well, let him!

I sank my hands into my pockets.

_And then I felt it!_

The flower.

The flower so out of season that I’d had to commission its fabrication from silk by two little friends.

I had meant to give it to him.

I had forgot.

I had three feathers.

What did he have?

No parting token.

“DAMN IT! DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!”

I released the flower, still in my pocket, and hit both fists against the wall.

That brought Holmes to me.

“Watson, stay. You are still ill.”

I turned to look him and, through tears, screamed, “I AM MAD, HOLMES! DON’T YOU KNOW A MADMAN WHEN YOU SEE ONE?”

I cackled at his expression, the horror that even my whiskey-soaked powers of observation could detect, but snarled—or perhaps hissed, some animalistic noise of wrath and warning—and drew back from a touch that never reached me.

“Let me go where the madmen go! To be trampled in the bloody snow!” I cried. Then I threw myself down the stairs and into the first hansom cab willing to take me.

* * *

_I could not be in love with him._

_With a spot of fun._

_With a hand, with a mouth, with a—_

_With a feather._

_It would be like falling in love with a whore._

_Men did. They made them Empress. They made them Queen._

_Women didn’t. They knew better. And good on them._

_We’re a lot of fools._

The lad at the door of the club took one look at me and rightly—he was a good chap; Holmes had helped him out of a spot of bother once—steered me to the ‘brooding corner,’ but he’d also taken pity and given me a rather nice chair and a rather nice spot by the fire and if he was watering the whiskey a bit, well, what of it?

He kept them coming.

He knew I wasn’t going anywhere but the privy.

Fools don’t.

* * *

The next day Holmes looked as rotten as I felt. The meal between us on the table was a kindness of Mrs. Hudson’s. Weak tea and near-nude toast was fare for a breakfast tray bound for a sick room, but it seemed to suit Holmes as well as it did me, though the hour be well into the afternoon.

I launched into my apology.

“Holmes, I am so very sorry for my temper yesterday.” I returned my cup to its saucer and continued, stubbornly ignoring his halting hand. “I genuinely appreciate your concern,” I quickly abandoned the attempt at a grin, “and, well, there’s no fool like an old fool.”

His voice was stiff and cold.

“I was heartened to find that you had not, in fact, met a madman’s fate.”

I managed a half-smile. “More apologies if I disturbed you upon my return. I have absolutely no recollection of leaving the club or arriving in my bed.”

“You sang,” said Holmes.

“Damn it,” I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose between forefinger and thumb. “Something foolish, no doubt.”

Holmes twisted his mouth and sang in a voice that I recognised as my own when I was well into my cups,

“And the green grass grew all around, all around, and the green grass grew all around!”

I stared at him.

One corner of Holmes’s mouth twitched once, and then his visage resumed the qualities of principle mourner at a funeral.

“I shall be at Barts laboratory for the remainder of the day. Oh, and this morning I made a purchase that may be of interest to you.” He rose and nodded toward our armchairs.

When he’d left, I investigated.

There, on the seat of his chair.

_Dresser’s Birds of Europe, 1871-1896._

* * *

 

I only looked at the pictures.

Though early yet, I took the book upstairs and readied myself for bed. I laid the three feathers side-by-side atop a white handkerchief spread on my bedside table.

Then I went page by page by page, studying every bird whose plumage even hinted at a shade of brown.

Until I could go no further.

Because there it was.

“Nightingale.”

I knew my ghost lover’s feathers were of a nightingale not for the size or colour or shape or any combination of the three.

But rather from the sprig of Spanish jasmine pressed to the illustration.

* * *

To say that my world tilted would not be an exaggeration.

It would not be an exaggeration because I was so disturbed that I fell out of bed.

I was in heap on the floor.

But I knew one thing: I could not, and would not even attempt to, decipher this mystery without Holmes.

I launched myself into some clothes and boots and tumbled down the stairs. I went to add more layers when Mrs. Hudson appeared.

“Doctor Watson, Mister Holmes said to give this to you before you left.”

I thanked her and took the parcel.

Another book.

Oscar Wilde.

I sank upon the settee.

Stories for children.

Ah, here it was.

The Nightingale and the Rose.

I read the story. And I read it again. And then I threw the book down and hurled myself into coat and hat and scarf, grabbed the nearest weapon and bounded into the fog.

* * *

I walked to Barts with only one plan: find Holmes.

And, naturally, as with every single plan in my weary lifetime, it went awry.

A blackguard emerged from the fog, pounced upon me, and threw me into a darkened side street. I was more annoyed than afraid, and what’s more, I was ready for him. I had Holmes’s single stick.

“Watson, it would be great irony to be felled by my own instrument of defense.”

He was behind me. The stone wall was to our right.

I did not look back; somehow, I knew the rules of the bath were still the rules.

“Holmes—”

“Watson, there are avenues before you. We can return to Baker Street and never speak of it. And you are well within your limits to never speak to me again. If you require a change of address—”

So many questions, but, in truth, one.

“Why?”

The reply sounded rehearsed.

“You were so occupied with editing the chronicle of the Baskerville case that you were unaware of most of the details of the Reverend’s predicament. The information that the blackmailer used to threaten him was related to acts performed at that bath. I visited once as part of the case and upon its successful conclusion asked him for the guest passes. He obliged.”

“Why?”

The reply was slow and stilted and so uncharacteristic of Holmes, I almost forgot the rule and turned around.

“Because I wanted to know if…”

He sighed.

“Because I wanted to know what…”

Another sigh.

When he spoke again, it was one long breathy whisper.

“Because I wanted you and wanted to know what it would feel like to be your lover.”

“There are other methods, Holmes!”

“Oh, and if I had propositioned you at the breakfast table?”

He had a point, but only a small one.

“But then why—also with fantastically indirect means, I might add—confess?”

“Because I saw how ill it made you. It is apparently my lot to repeat myself, Watson, but I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected. I thought you’d brush it off as a bit of sport and be none the worse for it.”

The blurred image of Holmes’s face of the night before. The sharper one of his face earlier in the day.

“And you?” I asked, then shook my head impatiently. “Wait, Holmes, but I don’t understand the nightingale part. I read the story. Are you the bird? Or the student? Who am I? The girl? Or the bird? Or the Little Lizard? And really you could pick your metaphors a bit more straightforwardly!”

He chuckled, then recited:

> _“So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.”_

He took a breath then continued.

> _“Then she gave one last burst of music…The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air.”_

“Holmes, are you honestly telling me that you are the bird and my… _prick_ …is the thorn?”

He laughed softly.

“I could never resist a touch of the dramatic, and of course, neither can Mister Wilde. Yes, Watson. I simply wanted you, and the years are passing and I dreamed up a chance and I erred gravely. And you are correct: there is no fool like an old fool—nor one who manipulates the best of friends for his own selfish pleasure. Your face, last night, was the real thorn. So full of—”

“Regret?”

“Yes,” he wailed in sorrow.

“Because I forgot to give you this.”

I pulled a gloved hand out of my coat pocket and held it open with the palm up.

“Peach blossom,” said Holmes. “ _’I am your captive_.’”

“We are a pair of idiots, Holmes.”

“Indeed.”

A long moment of silence passed, then I remarked,

“In the beginning, you said I had avenues. I’d like to hear the others.”

Holmes moved closer and when he replied it was not in the voice of a sleuth or of a philosopher or even of an apologetic friend, but rather of a man just beyond a wall at a bath.

My ghost lover.

“There are walls with holes all about this great city, you know.”

I smiled and unbuttoned my coat just enough to allow him to slip a hand within and lay it atop my prick.

“And that’s just the beginning of mutual interests we might explore,” he added softly.

The twitch should have told him everything he needed to know about my interest, but I also pushed into his touch, and he began to slide his hand very slowly up and down the bulge, tracing the growing outline with one finger.

“How are you so good at this, Holmes?”

“Application of theory is a specialty. Also, I’ve given the matter considerable thought.”

“I’ll say. I’m rubbish. Sorry about that, by the way.”

He tut-tutted. “Nonsense. Just out of practise. Three continents, remember?”

“That was three lifetimes ago!” I sighed and leaned back against his chest as his hand rubbed and my prick hardened. “But I suppose that I needn’t concern myself with _The Birds of Europe_. I only have to learn to please a single nightingale.”

The hand stopped.

“Watson?”

I turned my head to the side.

“I’m utterly smitten with the man at the bath. And I quite like the life I have with Mister Sherlock Holmes. It doesn’t seem like so insurmountable a task to sew the two parts together.”

A nuzzle at my neck. Then a pair of lips pressed to a tender spot. Then a warm puff of breath and ‘I adore you, Watson.’

I smiled and added, “And if we spend the remainder of our lives together, we spare the rest of the world our idiocies and preserve our fragile vanities.”

“Hurrah.”

I pressed harder against him. Layers of wool had taken the place of the wall.

“You want my mouth.”

I nodded. “But you needn’t—”

“Needn’t I?”

_Oh, that voice._

I swallowed.  "Afterwards, I want to take you home, and I want you to teach me how to love a nightingale without stabbing it to death with my prick.”

I heard the smirk in his reply. “It’s a subtle art, but it can be learned. Close your eyes, Watson.”

“Holmes, we could be arrested, robbed, killed—"

“Do you trust me?”

Was he mad?

“With my life.”

I closed my eyes and let him guide me to the wall. And he must’ve sank down among the filth, twisting himself between my body and the stone, for he tended to my coat and trousers and the rest of me whilst, per his order, I kept my hands on the stone.

_And then there was the mouth!_

He took my needy prick and suckled it and only paused to grin as best he could when I began to hum and rock my hips in time.

Later, I taught him the words. 

_“And in that hole, there was a feather, the prettiest feather that you ever did see. The feather in the hole and the hole in the wall and the wall at the bath. And the green grass grew all around, all around, and the green grass grew all around.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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